John Lewis’ verbal attacks on Donald Trump continued this weekend, as the congressman said he wouldn’t invite the President-elect to march alongside him in Selma, a site where he and many others took a famous stand for civil rights.
Lewis told Chuck Todd in an interview that Trump is welcome to visit any time, but “I would not invite him to come.”
TODD: “Can you imagine ever sharing a stage with Donald Trump? Donald Trump came to you and said, you know, I want forgiveness here. I want your trust or I want your — you know, would you take him to Selma?”
LEWIS: “Well, by going to Selma like President Bush, president Clinton, President Obama, maybe he would learn something. Maybe he would get religion.
TODD: “So you would bring him? You would — you would do that for him if he asked?”
LEWIS: “I would not invite him to come.”
TODD: “You wouldn’t invite him, but if he asked to come would you let him?”
LEWIS: “I wouldn’t try to prevent him from coming.”
The bitter response lies in stark contrast to the words Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963.
King’s voice cried out to drop the “bitterness and hatred” of the past, and to come together for a common cause.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred,” he implored in his famous speech. “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.”
Yet Lewis seems preoccupied with the bitterness of an election he feels makes Trump “illegitimate.” And by dividing a civil rights monument such as Selma in saying Trump and his ilk are not welcome to march with him, is anything but the togetherness King so gracefully preached.
King spoke of “be(ing) able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
That day has come, but Democrats continue to divide the American people in ways not seen since MLK’s speech so many years ago.
It’s time to put the ‘cup of bitterness and hatred’ away, and work together again.
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